CES 2007: More Netgear Skype phone details
After the success of their first foray into the Skype phone market, Netgear has followed up with a new version. This time, the handset isn’t limited to Skype calls alone as it doubles up as a DECT cordless handset as well. The obvious advantage to this is that you can have multiple handsets dotted around the house, potentially allowing you to make one call on your normal landline while someone else makes a Skype call.
In fact, Netgear’s marketing person informed us that you can actually have each handset logged into a different Skype account, which in theory makes it possible to have up to four incoming/outgoing calls going through the system at the same time. Sweet. What isn’t clear though, is whether you’ll be able to input text for Skype chats. The previous version didn’t support it so we suspect this one won’t either, which is a bit of shame.
The new Netgear Skype phone (glamorously called the SPH200D) is due out right now (in the US at least) and will sell for a fairly weighty sum of $199 for the base unit, then $99 for each extra handset.
Check out the rest of our CES coverage.
